Yahoo! Signs Global, Non-Exclusive Display Ad Deal With Google

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As first reported by AllThingsD, Yahoo has announced an advertising partnership with Google, not unlike working relationships it has with other companies. Yahoo in its current form has quite a few pages for advertising display and it makes sense that its CEO of less than a year, Marissa Mayer, would call on her former colleagues in Mountain View to fill those spots with Google’s contextual ad units.

As we navigate the web, both on desktop and mobile, we’re used to seeing Google’s display ads, and they do very well. Mayer has insight into how those ads perform, so this is basically a no-brainer for Yahoo. Mayer was employee No. 20 at Google, and has been able to see its Ad product mature over the years.

Every day, people turn to Yahoo! for their daily habits — like search, weather, news or more. At Yahoo!, we’re focused on doing everything we can to make the user experience inspiring and engaging. One way we do that is by providing relevant and well-targeted content — whether that be editorial or advertising content.

Say you’ve been shopping for boots. If you see an ad for boots, that’s instantly going to pique your attention more than an ad for, say, a car battery. That’s better for users. This is why contextual advertising is such a powerful tool.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we recently signed a global, non-exclusive agreement with Google to display ads on various Yahoo! properties and certain co-branded sites using Google’s AdSense for Content and Google’s AdMob services.

By adding Google to our list of world-class contextual ads partners, we’ll be able to expand our network, which means we can serve users with ads that are even more meaningful.

For our users, there won’t be a noticeable difference in how or where ads appear. More options simply mean greater flexibility. We look forward to working with all of our contextual ads partners to ensure we’re delivering the right ad to the right user at the right time.

The interesting part about Yahoo’s search is that its led primarily by the editorial content that’s posted on its homepage. It’s a different type of search, if you will. Google presents you only with a big open box, whereas Yahoo subliminally influences your searches based on the popular news being displayed.

This is a unique opportunity for Google to get its display ads onto some highly relevant and targeted content, rather than tossing remnants into extra spots that might never get clicked. Yahoo wants to make some money, and that’s not bad news for investors. But are Yahoo’s users interested in clicking on ads? That’s the question.

The deal is not an exclusive one, but if everything performs well, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the relationship start to run deeper. This is also a good way for the two companies to test out how they can work with one another on other potential products and partnerships. A Google spokesperson issued the following statement to us:

We work with a number of top publishers to help them monetize their content through AdSense for Content and AdMob. We’re thrilled to now include Yahoo! on that list.